Environmental Protection Agency Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler Thursday reversed his predecessor Scott Pruitt’s last major regulatory decision that had stopped enforcement of an Obama-era restriction on the manufacturing of trucks that use old engines built before modern emissions standards.
On Pruitt’s last day, July 6, the EPA told manufacturers of glider trucks, which critics call “super polluters,” that the EPA would at least temporarily no longer enforce a 300-unit per company limit, allowing more of the trucks to be produced.
The EPA would do further study of the issue before deciding whether to continue a process started by Pruitt in November to permanently repeal restrictions on glider trucks.
Wheeler previously told the Washington Examiner he agreed with the move, but after being sued by three environmental groups and a coalition of states, he backed down.
In a memo to his deputies, first obtained by the New York Times, Wheeler said the EPA can only suspend enforcement of an agency rule in rare circumstances after consulting with EPA lawyers and policy experts.
“I have concluded that the application of the current regulations to the glider industry does not represent the kind of extremely unusual circumstances that support the EPA’s use of enforcement discretion,” Wheeler said. Wheeler also cited the lawsuits for influencing him to change his mind.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted a stay of Pruitt’s non-enforcement action after environmental groups sued July 17.
The EPA in its own modeling has projected that so-called glider trucks emit 20 to 40 times as much of the pollutants nitrogen oxide and soot as trucks with new engines.
But Pruitt was swayed by intense lobbying from manufacturers who sell glider trucks to stop enforcing, through the end of 2019, an annual cap of 300 gliders per manufacturer that had been imposed by the Obama administration.
The main producer of glider trucks, Fitzgerald Glider Kits of Crossville, Tenn., argues they are cheaper to run, and that emissions from them cannot be regulated under the EPA’s Clean Air Act.
Wheeler, who had been Pruitt’s deputy before replacing him, told the Washington Examiner in his second week in the top job that he “knew about” Pruitt’s decision.
He explained the rationale as doing a favor for Fitzgerald, which he said faced uncertainty as the EPA decided on whether to limit glider trucks.
“Part of the problem there is you had a company [Fitzgerald] that was basically on the verge of going out of business while we tried to decide what we are doing,” Wheeler said. “In an instance like that, it’s important not to jump in. It’s important not to wait too long to come to a decision, while, at the same time, real world market forces are taking shape.”
“The regulatory process sometimes can be slow,” he added. “We don’t want unintended consequences in the private sector while they wait for a decision from the agency.”
Pruitt’s move to help Fitzgerald came after a university produced a study showing that pollution from glider trucks was the same as trucks with modern emissions controls, then reversed itself and asked the EPA to disregard the study.
Philip B. Oldham, the president of Tennessee Technological University, warned the EPA in April that “experts within the university have questioned the methodology and accuracy” of the study, which was funded by Fitzgerald, the manufacturer of glider trucks.
The issue is not dead, however, as the EPA has not said if it will stop trying to repeal the Obama-era rules, after Wheeler’s reversal of Pruitt’s non-enforcement of the glider truck limit through 2019.
